by DS Butler
Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, there was a knock at the door.
I shot up quickly. “Bernie, stop that now. Keep quiet! If you start moving things about, people will notice.”
Jess tried to grab the dancing knife and fork, but Bernie just giggled and lifted them out of her reach.
However, Bernie was his own worst enemy, and tripped over Athena, who had come into the kitchen to investigate the terrible noise Bernie had been making, and he fell, sprawling over the kitchen floor.
“Stay there and don’t move,” I ordered.
I quickly made my way over to the door, peering out of the little window beside it.
I groaned. Oh, no, of all the people to call round…
I pressed my back against the door and shot a look at Jess. “Keep Bernie quiet. It’s Deputy Joe McGrady.”
Crossing my fingers behind my back and hoping that Joe wouldn’t notice anything was unusual, I opened the door.
I gave him a tense grin. “Deputy McGrady, what a pleasant surprise!”
His brows were knitted together in a frown as he thrust his hands in his pockets. He shifted from foot to foot, either through nerves or from the cold.
“Is everything okay?” I asked. I was using my body to block Joe’s view of the hallway and the kitchen beyond.
There was an incredible racket coming from the kitchen, and I could hear my sister, Jess, pleading with Bernie to keep quiet. Thank goodness she didn’t mention his name.
“I thought I’d come by and make sure you were all right,” Joe said. “I know I was a little abrupt with you earlier, and as it’s Christmas Eve, I thought I’d pop by and wish you Merry Christmas.”
My body went rigid as I heard a tremendous crash from the kitchen, followed by a string of curse words from Grandma Grant.
Joe’s eyes widened as he tried to look over my shoulder. “Is everything all right in there?”
I nodded frantically. “Oh, yes, Grandma Grant is just trying to get things organized for tomorrow’s lunch.”
I knew Joe would think it was odd that I hadn’t invited him in. It was freezing outside, and it was Christmas Eve. It wasn’t very charitable of me to leave him standing on the doorstep.
“Well, if that’s all, Joe, I’d better get back to helping Grandma Grant. We’ve got a big day planned tomorrow.”
“Actually, Harper,” Joe said, reaching out to put his hand on the door so I didn’t shut it in his face. “I came to ask if you’d like to have a Christmas drink with me. I was going over to Sarah’s place for her Christmas Eve party and wondered if you wanted to come with me?”
“Oh.”
Sarah had invited me, Jess and Grandma Grant to come to her party. She threw one every year on Christmas Eve, but it had completely slipped my mind after everything that happened today.
I’d suspected that Sarah might cancel it after Bernie’s murder, but I supposed it was a nice way for the residents to get together and comfort each other after the murder.
There was nothing I would have liked to do more than go out with Joe now and leave Bernie to his own devices, but I couldn’t do that. I was the only one who could see him.
I realized I was taking a very long time to answer Joe’s question.
His eyes were warm, and they crinkled around the edges as he smiled at me. “Don’t tell me you are going to turn me down. It is Christmas Eve, after all.”
A fluttering sensation built in my stomach, but I opened my mouth to tell Joe I wouldn’t be able to go with him tonight when I heard Grandma Grant speak up behind me.
“What a lovely idea, Harper,” she said. She grabbed my coat from the peg by the door and thrust it at me. “Have a lovely time. We’ll hold the fort here. Don’t worry about us.”
She gave me a meaningful look and waved before practically pushing me out of the front door and into Joe.
I gave her a confused look. Why was she trying to get rid of me? I turned and saw Bernie had lifted one of the kitchen chairs and was trying to balance it on the top of his head.
That was something Joe definitely didn’t need to see.
“Oh, well, I suppose it would be nice to have a quick drink and wish everyone a Merry Christmas.”
Grandma Grant shut the door on me before I had even managed to shrug my coat on.
I didn’t dare look up at Joe and see his reaction. I already knew he must think my family was kind of crazy, this incident had clearly underlined the fact.
He waited for me to button up my coat before he gestured to his truck and said, “Shall we?”
CHAPTER 5
I followed Joe, feeling incredibly nervous, not because this was practically a date with the best looking man in Abbot Cove, but because I’d just seen Bernie’s face at the window and he was closing and drawing the curtains repeatedly.
I quickly hopped in the truck and said, “Okay, let’s go!”
Joe grinned at my eagerness. “Are you sure you’re okay, Harper?”
I nodded. “Absolutely fine.”
The truck was still warm as it hadn’t had a chance to cool since Joe had driven up here, and for the first time that evening, I felt myself relax properly.
I did feel a little guilty for leaving Jess and Grandma Grant to deal with Bernie, but not for long.
I turned and smiled shyly at Joe as the realization he had asked me out on a date started to sink in.
“I thought you’d be working tonight.”
Joe shrugged. “I am, this is just a break for me. The chief and I are going to work in shifts, so I’ll get a little time off now and then work for the rest of the night.”
Joe only had a limited time off, and he had chosen to spend that with me. I smiled at the thought.
It didn’t take us long to get to Sarah’s house. She lived in the new residential district of Abbot Cove in a charming one-story house, with a perfectly manicured lawn, carefully pruned shrubs and a sparkling white picket fence. It was the complete opposite of our higgledy-piggledy cottage and Grandma Grant’s slightly rundown, sprawling family home.
There were Christmas lights in the window and from outside I could hear music. It was still early evening, but due to the time of year, it was already fully dark.
Joe walked around the truck and opened the door for me. I tried my best to get down in a ladylike fashion, and we walked inside together and found Sarah’s living room was crammed full of people.
It looked like everyone in Abbot Cove had turned up for her Christmas Eve party.
She had decorations up everywhere, and the place looked beautiful apart from the corner of the room by the window, where she had a large collection of brown twigs and bare branches instead of a Christmas tree.
I gulped.
Oh dear, it looked like Sarah was one of the casualties of Grandma Grant’s dodgy spell.
Mrs. Townsend approached us first. She was carrying a tray of mini Yule logs and presented them to us grandly.
I took one and thanked her.
But I should’ve known she hadn’t just come over to wish us Merry Christmas, she was out to get information.
“So, Deputy McGrady,” she began casually. “How is the investigation going?”
I thought I saw a smile twitch at the corner of Joe’s mouth. “Very well, thank you for asking.”
Mrs. Townsend’s lined face became even more wrinkled when she scowled. She was hoping for more gossip-worthy news than that. Joe McGrady wasn’t about to get off that easily.
The Abbot Cove gossip network was a force to be reckoned with.
Mr. Townsend joined his wife and then Dr. Madeline wandered over too.
“Any news?” Dr. Madeline asked.
Joe shook his head. “The investigation is ongoing. It won’t be long before we have some information to share with the town.”
“Oh, good,” Mrs. Townsend said, popping a chocolate-coated yule log into her mouth. “Because I heard it was his ex-wife, Sandy Crouch.”
She raised her e
yebrows and gave a meaningful look to her husband and Dr. Madeline.
I sensed Joe tense beside me, and I figured it was because he didn’t like people spreading unfounded rumors, but then I realized it was more than that.
Across the room, striding toward us, was Bernie’s ex-wife, Sandy Crouch, and she looked absolutely livid.
She held up her hand and shoved Mrs. Townsend on her shoulder so she turned around.
“Oh, Sandy… I didn’t see you there.”
Sandy shook her head. “Of course you didn’t. Your sort only like to talk about people behind their backs. You should all be ashamed of yourselves!”
Sandy’s eyes were rimmed with red and I could tell she’d been recently crying. She glared fiercely at us in turn, and I took a step closer to Joe. She looked absolutely furious.
I didn’t think it was very fair. Joe and I hadn’t accused her of anything.
“I’m not going to stay here and be insulted,” Sandy said and spun on her heel before storming out of the house.
“Well, she’s a little bit sensitive,” Mrs. Townsend said. “That’s a sign of a guilty conscience if you ask me.”
“You can’t really blame her,” I said. “Her husband has just been murdered.”
Mr. Townsend shook his head. “Her ex-husband, you mean.”
We were saved from any further awkward conversation when Sarah spotted our arrival and made her way through the crowd toward us. She pushed a glass of fruity rum punch into my hand and tried to give one to Joe.
“Thank you, Sarah, but I will be working tonight, and I’m driving, so I’ll be sticking to the non-alcoholic drinks.”
Sarah whistled at her daughter Maggie, who had just brought in a tray of soft drinks. She handed Joe a Coke.
Then Sarah pulled me in for a hug. “Merry Christmas, Harper. I am glad you came.”
“Merry Christmas to you, too. It seems like the party is going with a swing.”
Sarah nodded. “Yes, I think people needed a community get together after the awful thing that happened to poor Bernie this afternoon.”
The Christmas music was suddenly racked up another notch, and we saw Mr. and Mrs. Townsend take to the center of the room and begin to dance to Mariah Carey’s version of Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town.
“The older residents of Abbott Cove sure know how to party,” I muttered as Mr. Townsend twirled his wife around almost sending her spinning into us.
Joe chuckled as we both took a step back.
“When I moved here, I thought I was moving to some sleepy backwater where nothing ever happened. How wrong I was,” Joe mused.
He raised his glass of Coke and clinked it against the side of my punch glass. “Merry Christmas, Harper. What are your plans for Christmas Day?”
“I’m spending it with my family,” I said, and despite the fact I had managed to push all my worries about my parents’ impending visit away while I had been in Joe’s company, the thought of tomorrow sent my stress levels rocketing.
I loved my parents. They had given me a warm, secure childhood, but for one reason or another, they couldn’t accept magic into their lives, and after Jess and I had turned sixteen, it had been difficult to live at home. My sister and I had been back to New York City plenty of times to visit and had enjoyed catching up, but Grandma Grant had never come with us to New York. Jess and I were pretty good at acting normally most of the time and fitting in, but even if Grandma Grant gave it her best shot, I don’t think she even knew how to act normally anymore. Magic was simply a part of her.
So, inevitably, there would be a little tension in the air tomorrow.
“My parents and younger sister, Lily, are coming to Abbott Cove tomorrow from New York City,” I said. “They are spending Christmas Day with us and spending the night at Grandma Grant’s.”
Joe frowned. “You seem a little anxious. Don’t you get on with your parents?”
I took a sip of my punch. “I get on with them just fine. It’s Grandma Grant who is the problem. Well, that’s not really fair. She is not a problem exactly, but she can be difficult, especially when she is under stress.”
Joe considered my words and nodded. Then he looked startled when Dr. Madeline joined the Townsends, strutting her stuff in the center of Sarah’s lounge with Peter Watson, the local vet.
I giggled. “Now the party is really getting started.” I nodded at eighty-three-year-old Ethel Goodridge. “Just you wait until Ethel gets up there. You haven’t seen anything yet,” I teased.
Joe shook his head and suppressed the urge to laugh.
“What are your plans for Christmas?” I asked him.
Joe shrugged. “I don’t really have any. I don’t have any family close by and I’ll probably be working on and off anyway.”
How thoughtless of me. I hadn’t even considered the fact he wouldn’t have anyone to spend Christmas with. I bit down on my lower lip.
I had a dilemma. I knew I shouldn’t ask him to join us. The day was going to be stressful enough, trying to stop the arguing between my father and grandmother about magic, plus we had Bernie to deal with… But the thought of Joe spending Christmas on his own forced my decision.
The words left my mouth before I could stop them.
“I know you will be working, so you might not be able to spare much time, but you’re welcome to come and have Christmas lunch with us.”
A slow smile spread across Joe’s handsome face that set those butterflies dancing in my stomach again. “Are you sure your family won’t mind?”
I shook my head. “No, the more, the merrier.”
I hoped Grandma Grant didn’t mind. I was sure she would have prepared enough food, and besides, as none of us were great cooks, nobody would be missing out if we had to have smaller portions. To me, the most important thing about Christmas was sharing the celebration with family and friends.
After we’d finished our drinks, we said goodbye to Sarah and snuck outside. Joe narrowly avoided being dragged into the dance area with Mrs. Townsend. Everyone seemed to be dancing now, and I thought Sarah’s punch may have had more rum in it then I had first thought.
Joe drove me back to Grandma Grant’s house, and I relaxed in the passenger seat of the truck happily. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been so quick to invite him for lunch tomorrow, especially as I hadn’t asked Grandma Grant yet, but I was sure we would get through it somehow.
I looked at Joe and smiled. Call me strange, but I was actually looking forward to it.
CHAPTER 6
Thankfully, Joe had to get straight back to work so I didn’t have to think up an excuse not to invite him inside Grandma Grant’s house. I waved goodbye to Joe and let myself in.
Jess was sitting in a chair by the fire. Athena was curled up by her feet, and in her lap, she held my cat, Smudge.
Grandma Grant said Smudge had picked me as her owner when she followed me home, but over the last couple of months, she had grown very close to Jess, too. We both adored having the little bundle of fur around. She was a tiny cat compared to Athena, and at first, I thought she was only a kitten, but when I visited the vets to get all her shots, they had informed me that she was a fully grown cat. Smudge must have been the runt of the litter. I knew how she felt.
I walked over to Jess and scratched Smudge behind the ears. “How are things going?”
“Not too bad,” Jess whispered and nodded at a lump on the sofa beneath a blanket, which I guessed was Bernie Crouch.
“Any progress on the Christmas trees?”
“Grandma Grant is just putting the finishing touches on the potion, and then we’re going to try and cast a spell to restore all the needles to all the affected trees in Abbott Cove.”
I raised my eyebrows. Grandma Grant was a powerful witch, but that did seem a little optimistic and ambitious even for her.
“And how was Bernie?” I asked.
“He fell asleep shortly after you left, thank goodness. I have never known a ghost to be such a pain. How is he able to
move things around like that when he has only been a ghost for a few hours?”
I shrugged. “Beats me. I guess he is what they call a poltergeist.” I sat down in a chair beside Jess, enjoying the heat from the fire. “You should have come to Sarah’s party. Everyone is really letting their hair down.”
Jess grinned. “I’m not surprised. Last year she put two whole bottles of rum into the punch. I think there will probably be some sore heads in Abbott Cove tomorrow.”
I laughed, glad I only had one glass.
“So what are you going to do about Bernie Crouch?” Jess asked. “Did Joe tell you anything about the case?”
I shook my head. “No, he is playing his cards close to his chest. Archie told me the chief was looking into his ex-wife, Sandy, and while we were at the party, Sandy overheard Mrs. Townsend gossiping about her and stormed out. She did look very upset. I’ll have to talk to Bernie about it, but hopefully, he will sleep through tonight, and I’ll try and do some investigating tomorrow morning.”
Jess gave me a look. “Well, you had better make sure you are here when Mom and Dad arrive. Grandma Grant is going to need our support. I had a chat with her tonight, and I know she’s really worried about seeing Dad again.”
I frowned as Smudge jumped out of Jess’s lap and landed on mine. I stroked her soft fur and asked, “Did she say that?”
“Of course, not. This is Grandma Grant we are talking about. She would never admit to being worried about something. But I can tell.”
At that moment, Grandma Grant shouted from the kitchen. “It’s done. It is time to cast the spell, come along, Jess.”
I followed Jess into the kitchen, carrying Smudge in my arms. Grandma Grant stood by the kitchen counter. Wispy, gray hairs had escaped from her bun, and her cheeks were flushed in concentration.
“Ah, Harper. You are finally back. It’s about time.”
“You told me to go!” I said, my eyes narrowing.
“Yes, because I didn’t think Joe would understand seeing things floating around the house, but I didn’t think you would take that long.”
